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Anyone who’s managed to stockpile My Nintendo gold coins, the members-only point system awarded to Nintendo Switch owners for buying games, has a new thing to spend them on. Once Nintendo Switch Online launches Tuesday, Sept. 18, My Nintendo members can put some of their gold coins toward the cost of their subscription to the service.
On Nintendo’s support page for Nintendo Switch Online, the company explains how users can redeem gold points toward a subscription.
“Gold Points can be used when purchasing a membership in the Nintendo eShop,” reads an answer on the list of Frequently Asked Questions. “They cannot be used for auto-renewal.”
Nintendo Switch Online can be purchased through other retailers, but having a sizable coin collection should make eShop the easy choice. Understanding the conversion rate between dollars and coins can be confusing, however, so here’s a quick explanation from Nintendo:
You can earn points by purchasing eligible games and downloadable content. Points are awarded based on the amount you pay (excluding tax and any points or discounts used).
Digital purchases [...] 5%
Physical purchases [...] 1%
For example, if you pay $59.99 for a game on Nintendo eShop, you’ll earn 300 Gold Points. Those points can be redeemed for $3.00 toward your next eligible purchase.
Some not-so-simple math suggests you’d need about 2,000 gold coins in order to pay for a 12-month Nintendo Switch Online subscription, which costs $19.99, solely using My Nintendo currency. And to get 2,000 gold coins, you’ll have to spend something like $400 on eShop games.
All of that is to say that you have to be a big shopper for this to be a viable option, but there are tons of Switch games already — it’s not impossible to think at least a few of you have enough points to buy a year of Switch Online in My Nintendo money.
For the rest of us, we have the option to spend $7.99 for three months of Switch Online, $19.99 for 12 months of it or $34.99 for an annual family plan. Starting tomorrow, we’ll need to pay up if we want to continue playing Switch games online or get access to cloud save backups, in-game voice chat or NES games with online multiplayer.
